then the 40th anniversary of the opec oil embargo and what the role is in the world today. [indiscernible] host: flags flying at half staff, in memory of tom foley. also in the news today, the former republican congressman bill young passed away yesterday. he was 82. in other news, the u.s. now stands -- that rising by $300 billion this past tuesday. saudi arabia turns down an invitation to join the security council. today,weekly address

president obama discusses issues he would like to focus on now that the shutdown is over. he would like to see honks pass a budget, work on immigration reform, and the farm bill. our first 35 minutes is devoted to what you would like to see congress focus on now that the shutdown is over. you can pick up one of the president's topics or maybe you have topics of your own. here is how you can reach out to us -- what would you like congress to focus on now that the shutdown is over. if you want to reach out to us is oural media, @cspanwj twitter page. you can send this e-mail to act journal@c-span.org.

that he'll has a part of that weekly address -- l" refers to that weekly address -- for our first 45 minutes we would like for you to give us a sense of what you would like to see and for congress to focus on. here is how you can do so. if you want to give us a call --

tweets are always excepted. as always you can give us an e- mail. from georgia on our republican line. good morning. i am really excited this morning. i think we need to take cutting spending. tom brady is one of the best. i predict someday he will be president. we have people like tom price from georgia. we need to cut spending. are too many federal

employees in washington. there is far too much government. we have a real interesting primary. what we have to do is elect more taxpayers like tom price, tom grace. host: you mentioned spending this groupt about that will work on spending issues e do think that will go anywhere, especially since the have to come up -- spending issues? do you think they will go anywhere, especially since they will have to come up with -- caller: i hope they can come up together with a bipartisan plan. history has always been the democrats want to spend and we republicans think this is far too much spending. we have to cut spending. we have a $17 trillion debt.

we have to cut spending. that is why i think tom grace is such a great leader. this is sheila from carrollton georgia. what should be the focus? caller: i agree with the man who is just on. i think it is a misnomer that democrats are always spending and republicans are always cutting. what i think should happen right now is someone needs to take the .ead in the house i feel very sorry for this country and what we have been through. have wastion i do

cutting government workers. think a lot of us found out that government workers are very necessary. you cannot cut government workers. they do a very good job. dealt with staff members for 30 years on both sides of the political spectrum. they do a very good job. of help,ed any kind call them, call your congress people. what is your congress focused on now -- what should congress focus on now, that is the topic. our next caller is from kentucky. caller: we need to get the gangs

of government. there is a book called "immigrants and republicans." we need to get back to the constitution and bill of rights. we need to get some new people who aren't trying to sabotage the country. host: what issue would you like to see congress tackle? first we need to focus on the debt. i think it was $300 billion increase trade i think the republicans are doing the right thing. obviously there's not much they can do because obama is just going to continue to keep the country shut down.

the book you quoted, that is jesse ventura. why do you like that book or at least like it's ideas? it just focuses on getting back to the constitution and what the country was originally founded on. host: a couple of facebook comments this morning, a couple of questions on what you would like to see congress focus on. twitter -- on facebook --

davey is calling us on our republican line. good morning. it is true that the government shutdown is over. minute -- it is over $70 trillion. nobody cares about them. it is rising. i think the people and the american people -- they have to hear our voices. thank you very much. host: that is davey from new

york. to get a sampling of ideas and thoughts on what the congress should focus on, the collar has mentioned the $17 trillion debt story in the washington times. trumped a record 23 billion on thursday. equals a little over $17 trillion according to figures from the treasury department. 320 $8 billion increase shattered the previous high. government was replenishing its stock of extraordinary measures. , willl funds, if borrower try to avoid bump into the debt ceiling. the president used his weekly address to talk about the issues he would like to see. cells -- we addressed those at the top the show. here are his own words. [video clip]

>> there are three places were democrats and republicans can work together right away. we should pursue a balanced approach to responsible budget. one that grows our economy faster and shrinks our long-term deficits further. there's no choice between growth and fiscal responsibility. we need both. we are making a serious mistake if the budget does not focus on what you are focused on, creating more jobs. if we are going to free up resources for the things that help us grow, education infrastructure and research we should cut what we don't need and close corporate tax holes that do not -- corporate tax holes that do not create jobs. our deficits are shrinking, not growing. we should finish the job of firkin -- a fixing our broken immigration system. there's a broad coalition that is behind this effort from business leaders to faith leaders to law enforcement. it would grow our economy, it would secure our borders, the

senate has artie passed a bill with strong bipartisan support. and now the house should to. the majority of americans think this is the right thing to do. it can and should get done by the end of this year. bill, onepass a farm that america's farmers and ranchers can depend on, one that depends choate -- that protects children and adults in times of need. host: if you were to look at the flags of the capitol building you would notice that a are at half staff paid that is to commemorate the passing of former house -- former house speaker tom foley, who passed away. he served from 19 29 to 2013. -- he lived from 1929 to 2013. supported ronald reagan, a --

that is in the washington post. bill young -- this is the right up --

all that a profile of are presented of bill young, who passed away yesterday. in our remaining time, what you want congress to focus on next. this is our next call for maryland. the first thing obama wants to be done is budget. i look at it this way, if they start working on immigration [indiscernible] we pay off back taxes. know they will have to pay.

[indiscernible] tried immigration reform, congress has tried immigration reform several times. why do you think this is the time that it may happen? here is my point. if they do not step up to make -- ffort we can look to the last election. republicans don't get any good [indiscernible]

i am also a small business owner. host: thank you. iron patriot from twitter says -- back to the phones. middletown pennsylvania, republican line, good morning. i am a republican, and i am a fisherman. do is createo about a million jobs. i called or e-mailed mark cuban. if he doesn't get ahold of me by today i am going to e-mail jeff bezos.

i have figured out where all of the poor people and the people on welfare and social security and disability can make $50,000 per year just working 40 hours a week. that is all i have to say. host: did you address what congress can do as far as jobs or entrepreneurship or things like that? i don't think they have any ideas at all. senator tom cruise shut down the -- senator ted cruz shutdown the congress. he is as stupid as obama. host: james is up next from chattanooga, tennessee on the democrats line. iller: my name is james and am a 64-year-old vietnam honored combat veteran. i hope you will allow me the time to speak.

of c- been an observer span for quite a number of years. we get thiscut -- pushed back constantly from the republicans and tea party. get over it. the democrats won. change.try wanted a this republican tea party -- he makes this long pronounced speech about his political stance. it is so ridiculous that c-span can let this man get through what i can barely get through once a year. talks get through and just like -- he will tell you he is a tea party republican and a chairman of the board and all for this and all for that and

calls everybody by first name. he can get through when he wants to. this amazes me that c-span will let this happen. a couple of things. what should congress focus on next? caller: what my congress should is tea party issues going forward. the president has opposed his agenda. he is willing to work with everyone. it is not just the republicans or tea party. it is because he is black. people, get used to it. he is going to be black. he is from america. he is not from kenya. these give it a break. : from ohio on the independent line.

-- a win the from ohio on the independent line. -- owen from ohio on the independent line. amazing that they have been after the president since inauguration. my leader in the senate made a statement on the floor that his number one goal is to make sure that the president was not reelected. it is such an indication why we -- it could be the topics the present -- topics the republicans want. if it comes from the positive and they will oppose it. president that ran on a platform in 2008.

he institutionalizes certain projects that he ran on. he ran a second time. people of america elected him. i am not quite sure what the problem is. they have to focus on manufacturing jobs. that has been a strength of america. tied into that has to be education and immigration. if you realize some of the --ghtest minds in america when people migrated united states. we have to do to a balanced budget -- a balanced approach. off of twitter --

he is the chairman of the house energy commerce committee. in thehe lead story "detroit free press" this morning -- from "the wall

street journal" -- paul from florida, republican line, what is your focus on

gecko -- on? caller: your previous caller, thank you for your service. simple, how out of touch are these guys in d.c. e -- in d.c.? republicans, democrats, black, white, hispanic, heterosexual, transgender, what we need to focus on is the economy and jobs. these guys are so out of touch in d.c. and is it any surprise we are in the shape we are in the echo have a great weekend, pedro. -- we are in? have a great weekend, pedro. host: next caller. caller: i could not agree with

the last caller more. we have to focus on jobs, on growing our economy, and cutting government and cutting spending is not going to do that. austerity cuts over and over show that it will shrink the economy. the more people we have come in the more money we invest, the more people we have working, the more people we have paying taxes , our deficit goes down. if we continue these cuts and continue cutting jobs all we are doing is hurting ourselves. we are squeezing people tighter and tighter. doing nothing to pull out of this recession in a way that is going to help the average american person. if it is not found in austerity cuts, where would you find that bill? i would find it in

investment and infrastructure, investment in manufacturing, and paying jobs for low skilled or trade workers. that is where we need to put our money. person --e american that is what we need. i think that would help us greatly. host: randy from pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i would like to see our debt get reduced over time. i think we need major entitlement reform. i would also like to see some foreign-policy changes in i don't think we should beginning out any foreign aid over the next 20 years. if you do that over a long. of

time -- along period of time that adds up. it will go a long way in at -- in reducing our debt. randy from pennsylvania. if you're just joining us. -- if you're just joining us, we are talking about what congress should be focused on in light of the shutdown. immigration brought up, manufacturing, investment. we will continue to take your calls for the next 15 or 20 minutes. we spoke about the passing of speaker fully -- speaker fully foley this- speaker week. he onceyou a flavor, spoke about the most difficult part of being a speaker. he talks about one of the things he had to deal with, strong

personalities within his own party. [video clip] think -- werly i both recognized that one of the problems of the speakership is to deal with very strong and powerful voices within one's own party. i came to the speakership of the house as a former committee chairman, but not the most senior of them. others have been powerful and effective legislators and committee chairman. they held a specific knowledge and experience in their fields. not only was it the committee but the subcommittee chairman that has proliferated. i think we had 160 democrats in the house of representatives. sometimes there were conflicting jurisdictions between appropriations subcommittee chairman and authorizing

committee chairman or subcommittee chairman. there is a problem sometimes of managing strong effective and powerful personalities. that is one of the jobs i did not anticipate when i became speaker. much is parsing a jurisdictional disputes, trying to mediate between conflicts and approaches to various committees and assignments. it is the pitching work, as my former senator, warren magnuson, spoke about in terms of the day- to-day work. the thoughts of the late former speaker tom foley. you can find out more of what he said and his appearances on this network at c-span.org. joshua is up next. he joins us from south carolina, republican line. caller: how are you doing echo -- doing? i think congress should continue to focus on the health care bill

to be delayed for a year, to cut out what needs to be cut out and replace it with better stuff. irresponsibly, it , wedone on the basis of should pass it and see. if the democrats had to pass something without reading it and it was going to them and house -- i mean, in the senate and house, and they had to do it themselves, they would not do it. they continue to keep it for themselves. they are giving it to the american people but not themselves. host: not to the health care law, posit -- put it on pause, fix it --

caller: than they should get rid of the fate -- get rid of the payroll tax and have a flat tax. that would create jobs. host: we hear a lot of people advocate for that. why do you think it would work? caller: it would be a across- the-board tax and companies would not have to pay the payroll tax that would prevent them from hiring new people. it would free up the working system. i don't think more taxes are the answer. more taxes get the government -- if the government spends more than they are taking and, regardless of how much taxes you are giving, the government is going to continue to have an increased that because they are spending more than they are taking in. host: this is ryan from roanoke, virginia, talking about taxes in an e-mail this morning --

another e-mail, asking you to give us your thoughts to -- asking you to give us your thoughts on what congress should do next? -- should do next -- alan from los angeles california, democrat line. hello. i want to congratulate mr. obama on a victory over the republicans. [indiscernible] in the end they were defeated by president obama, the most powerful president history has seen in america.

our country is interest. [indiscernible] the times of new jersey highlights a story, taking a look at gay marriage -- it's arthur from alabama, thank you

for holding on on our republican line. caller: here is what i would like congress to do, i would like them to reread the u.s. constitution. there are twoe words that seemingly have ignored. those two words are general welfare. general is defined as all and welfare is need.

if everyone needs a cell phone, why doesn't everyone get a cell phone free of charge echo the 10th amendment to the constitution, they have ignored that also. there is a federal department on education. doesre in our constitution it say the federal government should take care of education. they should be left to the states. congressmen those would refer to a specific part , allowingt to ship in them to establish these suspending statutes.

i hope you have a nice day. cap from louisiana. -- cat from louisiana. the biggest thing we can take the cars, get rid of them, and do the vouchers. take the food stamp cards, make them is vouchers. we don't have to worry about nobody selling or buying the wrong things and furthermore, just like the gentleman just said, cell phones for people that is on welfare, for people that are on food stamps. phones are aell luxury, it is not a have to have.

the money they're spending on that can go to the child -- go to the college children. i am not understanding why they cannot see these particular things that they can do? how did you come to focus on those two things? i have worked at a grocery store. -- i have seen all these chips. they are buying them, they are selling them. i have woman from foreign countries. they had a lady that came in to my line and she told me she had children.

she said i'm not going to have anymore, i said i cannot afford it. she said government pays for children. that's what she told me. she serious. she is so serious. she told me government pay for you, you don't have to worry about it. i want to say, that is taxpayers money. they have children, they cannot afford them. have, thehildren they more government gives them. that is not right. i am saying that as a democrat. how do they react when you say that? many of them agree with me. getfully this message does

to them. something needs to be done with the food stamps. cut?think they need to be no. but i think they need to find another weapon to help his people with food. host: if you happened to you focused on the virginia governor's case you would know that the -- tapped to give the republican response to president obama. in the washington post -- here is a little bit of kim pridgen l.a.. -- of ken to jelly -- of ken cuccinelli. [video clip]

>> i am proud to say many of those heroes were virginians, including george washington, thomas jefferson, and patrick henry. because it believe obamacare was a front to our liberty, i stood up. i was the first attorney general to challenge the law in federal court. i continue to search for avenues to minimize obamacare's hurtful impact on virginians. during the debate over this law, citizens in the commonwealth were told they could easily access information about their health care choices and join the system. that proved to be untrue. they were told their premiums would not increase. that proved to be false. keepwere told they could axis to their insurance and their doctors. that proved to be doubt -- to be downright dishonest. today our citizens are typically concerned about what the future .olds what kind of country will we hand our children the echo my wife and i share these concerns. it is why i stood up and said

obamacare is not right for virginia. it is why i fought alongside 27 other state attorneys and said obamacare is not right for america. it is why i am sharing this message with you today. i know we can do better. we are on the topic of what the congress should do next. texas, independent line. thank you for having me. i would like to express my opinion on the shut down before he gets my main point. first i think both parties should be held accountable for the shut down, mainly because they did absolutely nothing to squeeze out any form of compromise. next call, republican line. i would like to next congress to concentrate -- i

would like to see them cut government spending. a $17 trillion debt, i did not realize that i do not know if the average person knows what that is. $1 trillion is 1000 billion, and one billion is 1000 million. it is astronomical we allowed ourselves to get into that kind of shape. in other thing i would like to see our congress focus on is abolishing the federal reserve and i am a student of the constitution. it says only congress should be allowed to coin money and regulate the foundation -- regulate the value of. i would like to see return the congress their right to coin money. host: when it comes to spending, where would you cut it to?

-- cut it? caller: i would start with entitlements and foreign aid. several years ago we in tennessee came up with a care for people who cannot buy insurance. it was supposed to be set up for people that were not insurable. we have a probably -- over 3 million people signed up for that. there is no way you can tell me -- i wasmillion people uninsurable. i tried to purchase insurance at four different places, i was denied. i was a bricklayer. they pasted on salary. i had to pay $60 per month for a family plan. you had to pay for it, but you had to pay for it based on how much money you made.

i don't think we can afford it. janet from florida on the democrats line. with the shut down and the government and the raising of the debt ceiling, i think they need to do their main job and work on the budgets, work on compromising, ending sequestration, they need to close tax loopholes so that we can raise more money from the wealthy. i think they need to do their job and they need to work more addicts. having all of these problems, they were there over weekends and everything else. if they just work five days a week, eight hours a day, and quit taking so many days off maybe they can get something done. they usually only work three days per week. they spend too much time back

home in their districts and not actually doing their jobs. i also support raising the minimum wage. compromise. they need to know that nobody gets everything they want but they have to compromise and we cannot go through this all over again in january and february. how do you compromise? how do you compromise? where do you compromise? caller: we are going to have to look at things like social security and medicare and medicaid and make it as run as efficiently as possible. we also have to look at closing tax loopholes, making it simpler so that the wealthy pay a bigger share. raise social security limitdicare -- raise the

on how much taxes taken whenever you are working past $100,000. that is crazy. we would have more than enough money to pay for it. host: thank you. mark is up next from black mountain, north carolina. caller: it is good to be on today. i would like to start out by saying -- what the guy said about the federal reserve, the constitution does say congress is in charge of appointing and regulating money. i think what they ought to be working on is replacing every single one of them and starting -- everywhite house single one of them, starting with the white house, with the government that works on the constitution. that is what i wanted to say. host: last call from

minneapolis, minnesota. i don't think people realize how big government is. we are paying for nasa, for amtrak, the post office, lunches, education, foreign aid. we are spying on our own people. it goes on and on. congress needs to define the role of government. when these things happen people are afraid they will come up with an excuse that is too important to cut this. we are paying for legal immigration and education and everything. it goes on and on and on. one of the callers to said he placed a cut on foreign aid. homeland security, we have a robust military. their purpose was to do homeland security. if we brought them home and have

them do their duties instead of being overseas and trying to worry about borders and oppression and political unrest overseas, if we took care of that here we could cut our bill in half. how does defining the role of government play out? caller: they will have to prioritize what is important. the government right now acts like -- they suck all of our taxes out and then adjust benefits the people of the elite. they do favors for each other. if we defined the role of government it would reduce the obligations so we don't have to pay for all of this. we would be able to spend and do things in our community. we are all suffering down here.

they are living large up there. host: that is tracy from minneapolis, minnesota. shutuld take a look at the down. the topical we are going to focus on is the economic welfare after the shut down. to economists joining us to talk about the long-term effect, jason fichtner of george mason university. we will be later joined i rudolph penner. ther on we will learn about historical context but what it means as far as how opec operates and what the rising energy production means for an opec nation. we'll take that up with john kingston. turn to our sister channels, c-span2, and c-span3, which turn into american history tv and booktv on the weekends,

you would know that here he pennsylvania will be the focus of this weekend on both of those channels -- that yeaerie, pennsylvania will be the focus of this week it on both of those channels. and author will talk about the war of 1812 and the campaign of 1813. >> coming up next, a look at political cartoons and their influence on politics and the national conversation. after that, president obama awarded the medal of honor -- >> it was very hard fought. most of that was maneuvering into position. the british were cited at dawn about 10 miles away. the winds were out of the southwest. the british had to gauge whether they could keep on course and maintain an up went position.

perry was forced to beat the weather to get out of anchorage. for our sin to this they were not able to get clear of rattlesnake island, the island that encloses the harbor. wind shifted 90 degrees at that moment. when he came back he had the winds from the southeast. . is closing in. after an hour and a half of this intense silence and all the preparations have been made, they are just waiting and waiting. the british have advantages in raines paid detroit's larger ship is armed primarily with long guns. he decides to turn right for the -- ash line and clothes in

close it. -- and the closing. hurray he figured if he did and do this for 20 minutes he could get in there. once he closed and he would have such fire superiority that he would able to seize them. "washington journal" continues. host: we are going to take up the topic of the long-term effects of the shut down. we invited to economists to talk about that statement. from george mason university, he is their senior research fellow, jason fichtner. he is joined by rudy penner. now that it is over, how do we gauge the long-term economic effects of what happened in the past three weeks he echo -- three weeks? caller: we have been going through threats of shutdown and threats of violating the debt

limit for quite a well now. oft has caused a lot uncertainty in the business community with consumers. important, it has caused extraordinary disillusion with the government. i think those two things have a depressing effect on decision- making and on the economy. i saw an estimate of macro economic advisers that suggested that over the last few years we have lost about .3% per year of economic growth. >> agosta the idea of uncertainty as far as investors and how the community looks at the way we conduct business even on capitol hill. would you agree with that he echo -- with that? caller: this isn't over yet. all we have done is kick the can down to generate 15th.

the generate 15 state is decided -- is created to create another brick mentioned. congress has kicked the can down the road yet again. it is another brinkmanship deadline. we are going to go up that deadline and probably have the same problem with negotiations going into january 14. i am not hopeful. this creates an era of uncertainty. uncertainty creates paralysis. if people are uncertain about the government, the tax code, the economy, they do not spend, they do not create new jobs, it leads to retardation and growth. what industries are looking at us and how does that in the looks at us united states. and what does that mean to determine how we at -- how we are with economic risk he echo -- economic risk? do you want to put your

money in greek bonds come up spanish bond, portuguese bonds he echo they're still going to come here. that image is starting to go away. is costing us something different. this is more than just economics. it is about governance. this is not how we should run the best democracy and the world. i am not as confident as jason. we always say we have the most liquid bond markets in the world. we are the only place people can go. spreading their money around. they can start going to canada, which has been very volatile on the basis of fiscal policy. they can go to switzerland or germany. there are a lot of companies -- a lot of countries that -- i don't think we should be

confident at all. only a few basis points on the interest rates that we have to pay the chinese and others to buy our bonds. that can make a big difference. long-term economic effects -- host: long-term economic effects. about want to ask them the philosophies and specifics, here's how you can do so -- you can always tweet us an e- mail us, journal@c-span.org. the price tagged, $24 billion. what do you think about that as a figure and what does that mean for the folks following along at home he echo guest: -- at home? guest: i think it is high. werenment employees that furloughed are going to get back paid.

contractors, those that worked locally here, bartenders, restaurant owners, are not going to see that they -- see the pay at all. i have seen things like the standard and poor at 1.5 billion dollars per day. i've seen a total estimate of $2 billion total. i think the economic costs is what rudy was pointing out. that is what we are going to start seeing. guest: it is very hard to gauge the snap backs. what are they going to do? are they just going to go on spending as usual he echo are they going to look to -- as usual? are the going to look to january 15 and say we need to save a lot of money?

those are difficult to judge. an economic model does not pick it up very well. i think the most important point, jason mentioned it, is the uncertainty this causes and the discussed with government. it is extraordinarily difficult engaging that. i think it is very clear. there is quite a bit of academic research that shows uncertainty about policy does have a depressing effect on economic activity. host: do you think what we have seen over the last three weeks will show up in concert or confidence numbers -- in consumer confidence numbers he echo -- numbers? we are the see that declining already. they will start watching this function on capitol hill. i'm not going to go out and spend money. i think we may see some depressed holiday spending.

employees and contractors are now seeing that are now thinking if they have back pay, january 15, do they need to save up. maybe we do not spend so much money on christmas and hold it back for a rainy day. i agree with everything jason said. it should be pointed out that even at this point, $4 billion is not a huge incentive. beoubt they will clearly able to identify something like car sales or something like that. it does seem to affect consumer confidence erie -- confidence. we are only expecting the economy to grow two percent this quarter. push the economy down a little bit and it can go down a lot more rapidly. has been taking extraordinary risks with the

american economy and american people. host: the president said we are going to bounce back from this. would you share that estimation -- bounce back from this. would you share that estimation? hey it better be. if it said we are heading toward a recession, that would not have been a great thing. bounce back all the way, not entirely improving policymaking in washington. importants is an point. the markets have already recovered. they have recovered. they have sort of written this off. we are not concerned with the direct impacts you might be trying to measure today. we are concerned with what is going forward and how our dysfunctionitical is hurting both our ability to have a stronger economy, create jobs, and also what it says about our government. we really are a democracy of the people. we have that today? we cannot even get a budget passed.

are we doing this to regular order or crisis management? that is the greatest cost going forward that we have to find a way to solve. with us, donna the first music, texas, independent line 30 good morning, don -- independent line. good morning. >> the way it seems is that we are a government for the corporation by the corporation. thinkers -- host: caller, go ahead. black, all ofm these guys projected these things to happen. so the question is, where do we go from here? thathave think tanks have put in place these ripple effects, but all of these ripples are going to play out --

have they equated all of this up because it is going to work the world? --remarks host: mr. penner, do you want to start? guest: the important part of the question is -- where do we go from here? that is a difficult part to answer. it really takes an attitude adjustment on the part of the of the -- on the part congress. we have had a lot of errors in the past where republicans have a very strong position, the democrats don't want to perform any of the entitlements, and so forth. but in the past, we've had people in the congress who want to get things done, and they feel -- they used to feel they could compromise without taking their ideological principles. i had occasion recently to research the social security reforms of 1983. before those reforms began, president reagan and tip o'neill

had a secret agreement that they would not oppose any of the suggestions of the commission that had been set up. can you imagine such an agreement between speaker banner and the president today? that is not even thinkable -- speaker boehner today and the president? and that is the ingredient that i think we're missing today. i am not sure it is because of the lack of ability on the part of our leaders. i don't think so. there is something else going on that just makes compromise a dirty word, and that is disastrous in a democracy. his: mr. fichtner, to point, we now have paul ryan and patty murray sitting down, both taking positions where they stand on things. how does i go to the nature of compromise and he caller's question of where we go from here? guest: how come david stockman, for example, saw this and does

nothing about it. one of the things rudy and i were talking about is may be in the system -- we should look at changing be 1974 budget act that set the current rules and framework that we have today because right now it is not working. it is not working at all. basically if you look at discretionary spending, which is what the appropriation bill had cover, that is a commissioning -- that is a diminishing share. they're taking away the ability of congress to negotiate on special spending. they are often table. there on automatic pilot. we talk about defense and others, the total gets smaller and smaller, that creates more partisanship, more fighting. i do not expect any solutions come january 15 are guarding how we change the president incentives. the people on capitol hill are good-natured and care about the country, but the structure we have in place is rogan. host: -- is broken. host: maria from california. good morning. caller: how is it that they

always blame the republicans when harry reid was the one that the republicans, the house had sent over the bills for them to get paid, but they would not do it because of the health care? i don't get that because the thing is that if they are talking now about going to a debt -- owing to legalize all that illegals, ain't going to put more pressure on our government? instead of concentrating on us right now, we are concentrating on everybody else except for what we need here. that the people start waking up and say, you know, this is it, cut it out, we cannot afford this. and the welfare people -- i would like to ask you something, how come you guys don't drug test these people? i bet you a lot of people would get out because they are not

going to want this. thank you.aller, guest: maria, i'm not going to play the blame game. i think the systems that the bad incentives for both parties to not play nice. ultimately when it comes to who is to blame, it is us, it is the people, the voters who put these people on capitol hill. as he said, everybody has got to wake up, we have got to get more engaged. the civic involvement is lower than it should be to force change on capitol hill. i'm not blaming speaker boehner, senator reed, president obama. the incentive that they have another structure is broken. blood wake up and demand that kind of change. only then are we going to see a change -- the people have to wake up and demand the kind of change. guest: there is plenty of blame to go around. in this particular short run and cents, i think the republicans -- i am a republican -- but i was pretty ashamed about what the leaders were doing. they were on a suicide mission.

i mean, there was never any hope whatsoever that they were going to get rid of obamacare. why they took us down this road i have no idea. , you can citeback instances in which i think the democrats were more to blame for failure, for example with the supercommittee of the two years ago that was supposed to solve all of our problems. play a very constructive role in that. says, a goes back to the structure, but these are the people in charge of the structure. they should be able to start to reform it. i see very little interest in that right now. guest: i think that if the important point, just to quickly play office. think of the number of district that have gerrymandered. they are playing toward a very partisan base on either side. any ability ore want to compromise in that case. i agree, i do not think the rebel against to the right place

-- right path. it -- i do not think the republicans took the right path. the focus they had going into this, trying to control spending and debt, they should have stuck with that. trying to define obamacare, which was the law, this was not the way to do it. host: jodi, south texas, republican line. caller: good morning. i have watched c-span for the last 35 years, and i have watched a strategic plan of the republicans to bring down our country. and i have only one question -- why would they want us to go into a depression? who would make the money than en? all of the wealthy people. they would see everybody lose everything other than themselves . why would they want to do that? i have watched it for 35 years. i cannot believe that they would want to do that. thank you.

have a nice day. host: ok. any response? guest: i would argue with the basic premise, i do not think either one of our parties wants to bring down the nation. they have different ideas of how it should be governed, but i think, as jason said just a little while ago, most of our leaders are well-meaning. they would like to do what is good for the country. what has happened is that there is a huge disagreement about exactly what that is, and they have not been able to find their way to compromise. host: mr. fichtner? for theeople are here country, they love the country, they want to see at work. the problem is it has gotten so artisan -- so partisan. part of that goes to the people, the media process, the political process, in which it is easier to get soundbites and demonize your opponent than it is to sit one-on-one with them and have a

debate and discourse. democracy is airing differences of ideas and come to compromise. the talk shows on the weekend the demonize your opponents -- how do they expect to show up with them and work across the table monday morning. host: would you say the last three weeks affects everything on capitol hill now? guest: yes, absolutely. i'm a little uncertain whether it affected in a good way or a bad way. in the best of all circumstances, the leaders -- this is that a horrible thing to go through. i am not sure we will not go through it again. indeed, leader mcconnell has had appeared he is not going to cover -- close the government down again, but unfortunately it is not entirely under his control. i hope they learn good things from this very bad circumstance that we saw ourselves in. i am not totally confident they will. host: how could he see a change

? well, i could say a lot of things i wish would happen realistically, but being more mentionedabout it, we that chairman ryan and chairman murray are in this discussions over the budget. the budgets they start off with could not be more difference. just take one instance, one of the very mild reforms suggested recently is to change the index that we use for the indexing social security and other benefits. code to indextax that's a babel think is more accurate and tends to go up more that some people think is more accurate and into a more slowly.

$300 billion over 10 years or something like that. but it would get the democrats a little bit of revenue. it would get the republicans and little bit of reform of entitlement programs. that is about the best i can hope for. anst: i think this is important yardstick. it also attaches to the brackets , how much tax they pay based on inflation. right now, the chained cpi is a suggestion of going to the chain , the consumer price index. it has substitution effects. if it is set at $300 billion for 10 years, but now the government is spending $3.5 trillion per billion -- $30 billion a year is not the lowest of lowest hanging fruit when it

comes to entitlement reform. if we cannot even do that, even that little change, then the process is completely broken. that that little change long-term economic effects. it is too small, but it shows the process. the processw think is this optional and broken. if they can come together to find a way to do the lowest hanging fruit of an entitlement reform -- if they cannot even do that, then we have nothing. guest: it would have a very symbolic effect and could have a big psychological effect throughout the economy. if we closed on the government yet again, if we threaten the debt limit yet again, i guess the confidence in the congress cannot think to much lower. if you are just joining us, we are talking about the epidemic -- economic impacts of the government shutdown. our guests are rudolph penner, joining us from the urban institute, serves as a fellow there, and also joining us this jason fichtner at the mercatus

center, a senior research fellow at the organization. during this is another caller. -- joining us is another caller. caller: we claim there is a cost to the economy, and we hear a lot about austerity hurting the economy. would austerity only hurt a , where theconomy keynesian idea is propping up the government? for instance, this slowdown that we just went through, you have somebody that wants to sell $10 million of computers to the schools, but during the slowdown he could not so it hurt the gdp i $10 million. well, if the government is the economy, our government is just -- it seems to be so big and intrusive. it is the big businesses that have an advantage.

you know it is all just a game. governmentshrink -- why can't we shrink government? think ofnt to, which i a centrist idea, then you are a bomb throwing radical. government does not need to be running everything. host: thank you. go ahead. guest: the listener is right. ofre is a lot of controversy what austerity does to the economy. the basic problem from a budget point of view involves retirement programs. much of our problem is in social

security and in medicare. you don't change retirement programs abruptly. when you reform them, what you want to do is change them very gradually so that people nearing retirement have a chance to change their planning for interment. -- for retirement. in our case, austerity, as you can call it that, has to be introduced very gradually. to me, that is no threat to the economy. frankly, the last thing i fear is that our congress will reduce the deficit too fast. i just do not think that is in the cards. [laughter] i think it is important. i too am a fan of a smaller government, but i still want an effective government. we basically have an exploding entitlement program. we need to changes over time, put on a path to a 10, 20 year reform. theall austerity is greater

equally. it is not just mean taking a budget act like a sequester without making tough choices about what you actually want to reduce peer we need to get ourselves in a long-term fiscal path with a balanced budget, say, over 10 years. there are a lot of ways you can reduce the growth rate. growth in to get to a balanced budget in 10 years having the same revenues that we have now. we have to make sure we cut out the things in the economy and government spending that are in some ways wasteful or on top of what they need to be. host: do either of you believe the debate about the budget will include an effective way to replace the sequester cuts? guest: they will certainly be debating that. host: but you're skeptical. guest: i am skeptical, but the sequester is so horrible, and neither party like that. i mean, the democrats complain mostly about nondefense and the republicans about defense, but

these cuts are so inefficient that i think it is in both get rid ofterest to them. there will be a lot of pressure on them to get rid of them to pay for them some other way with an entitlement reform or if the democrats want tax increases and that is where it will be very difficult. to don't have to do too much pay for the sequester. guest: don't forget the sequester was the option that was so horrible it never could possibly happen. negotiationscause were even harder and compromise is basically a possible. as rudy says, the republican take the defense cuts, which there are areas of defense where we could reduce spending, believe me. the democrats hate the other discretionary cuts. the question is how do you do it? democrats want revenue, republicans one entitlement reform, they disagree with how to get the compromise, which means the sequester probably stays in place. host: here is lawrence from

illinois, republican line. caller: i the question the sermon be topic on the economic -- i have a question regarding the topic on the economic impact. past some states that have not passed a budget and were not able to pay their employees, they issued vouchers and had agreements with banks that would honor them. is it possible for the federal government to do that? i am sure there are plenty of banks that would maybe want to do that in exchange for a tiny interest payment or something wouldhat, basically eliminate a big disruption if you have another shutdown. if i may, i have a comment for the moderators for c-span. i think you guys do a wonderful job. i think your name is pedro. you and your cohorts, especially during the initial talkshows wherever it can call in, i am telling you -- you guys are very

professional because for every person that calls and who makes a legitimate point or a legitimate question, you have so many that just talk nonsense. i swear, if i had your job, i would go home every night and drink heavily. [laughter] thank you for watching. to his points before that -- guest: lawrence, a lot of us to go home and drink heavily, believe me. you reach a point, what would happen if we got into october 17 or the 18th and secretary lew said we cannot pay bills, the general consensus, and there's a lot of debate about what could happen and what was legal, but i tend to think that they would have prioritized payments major interest would've gotten paid so it would have been a technical government deefault. our credit would not have been effected, and perception, but not reality and legally. -- could youtook

issue vouchers, could you do this trillion dollar kornegay? -- coin? i think the government could do it and challenging, but that it is our perception of a dysfunctional government, and i'm not sure banks -- they might accept them, the debt ceiling ised, but is that really how we want to run the government? i think we want to force negotiations and compromise. get your response in a moment, mr. penner. i will take one more call, jeffrey, pennsylvania, immigrant line. caller: -- democrats line. ,aller: given that the debt each of us oh about $50,000 apiece, every man, woman, and child. it could you please comment on the feasibility of grover norquist's request that every republican pledge no new taxes? what do the tea party any republicans plan to do to pay for that $50,000 that each of us

currently owes to wipe out the debt? host: mr. penner, go ahead. guest: well, it is totally infeasible to cure this problem without some more tax revenues. and taxing the rich is not enough. you will have tax increases on the middle class. if we are very rigid on the spending side -- if you look at what you have to do to spending, if you have no new taxes, it is totally implausible. there is no side, way that you can solve the whole problem with taxes. one of the biggest problems we face is the rate of growth of health costs. they have been growing faster than the economy. they have slowed down recently, but not enough, probably, to get us out of this fiscal bind. if you really try to solve the

whole problem with taxes, doing nothing on the health programs, you literally have to increase taxes every year until we would be at denmark's kind of level of well over 50% of the economy. either.not feasible, there has to be some balance between the two. that is what we have to work towards. host: if you can hold on, let me squeeze another call, william, kentucky, independent line. caller: i have a very simple question. first, i want to make several points. most people in this country cannot differentiate between the deficit and the debt. most of them don't have any comprehensive and -- comprehension of what $1 trillion means. we get a lot of political math that comes out of washington. i know the difference between political map and genuine math. i have been retired for 12 years, but thought were -- math and physics on a graduate level for 30 years. i'm an old man. i want to know from both of you

-- atlly, at one point one point you consider the national debt and the unfunded mandate to become insurmountable? system -- the people want an honest answer. that is all i have to say. stewart. guest: -- that is all i have to say. thank you. guest: let me start with the trillion debt$17 and no taxes. we have to watch the nuance. if we say no new taxes, does that mean we cannot reduce the tax rate, but if i worked more in a more nominal taxa, that is a tax increase? tax corporation, that means we will pay for more in higher cost of goods, lower wages or lower turned to capital. we have to focus on what it means to tax and how we can do better taxing for the savings for the economy and growth. that is the first thing. with the liabilities and $17 trillion and no gross national

debt, i think we are already there. one of the things i've been saying for years is that if we start today, everybody can sing congress has to act now, not kick the can down the road, we can make modest reforms us are small and gradually change in time is over time so they get more in balance. is nothat anyway that harm current beneficiaries. we might be reaching that option. if we literally do not ask today, if we wait another year, it might be too late or it might harm current beneficiaries. it is not solve them because of outlets being higher than revenues. that is a crisis feared one of the things about politics is that it is very hard to raise taxes -- is very hard to reduce benefits. it is very easy to raise bar owing and kick the can -- are rowing -- raise borrowing.

$17e at the point where trillion, $50,000 a person, we are at the tipping point right now. guest: there is no doubt that if we continue on this current course we will eventually face a sovereign debt crisis, a crisis where bond markets collapse and other financial markets collapse. it is very difficult to say when that might happen. if you look, for example, at neil ferguson's article on foreign affairs about your or so of sovereign debt crisis, he goes through them as they have occurred in history. the feature about them is very strange. financial markets remain totally calm, while the budget is going down the tubes until one day they don't. and suddenly, you know, interest rates will go up 400 or 500 basis points or even more just

within a few days. occur in all manner of jet -- of debt, gdp, deficit levels. totally not predictable. ferguson says it is the sort of thing that can be sped off in a bad budget news on an otherwise dull tuesdays -- dull news day. guest: if we start seeing a spike in interest rates, they are artificially low because the federal reserve is buying a lot of bonds, interest rates go back up, we start seeing a spike in payments. you start looking at their long-term forecast, you got 50, 60 years, interest rate -- and strict -- interest payments become a dollar we are paying out, that is a lot of money to crowd out. maybe it is too big. guest: if you talk to canadian politicians about how did they reform their budget processes,

they will point to interest. in their case, interest was taking up 40% of the revenue. jason was talking about 50 years given the cbo's assumption that interest rates will approach normal historical levels, interest becomes the most rapidly growing item in our budget indeed. what cbo calls their baseline as current law, which is quite optimistic, interest will rise 14% per year over the next 10 years, and i am hoping that is enough to get people's attention. host: let me get a quick responses of the nose on the "wall street journal" this morning. investorsne is -- shrugging off the washington whiplash. if investors shrugged off the crisis is on, they might not bat an eye in a few months. the federal deficit -- economic growth and a narrowing federal

deficit are reducing the stakes of each stand up. meanwhile, the failure among congressional republicans to bring many concessions from a strike are showing it is nonexistent. the. peopleit harms to many without getting anything from it. as rudy pointed out, the cbo shrinks in a sears, then it starts to increase rapidly again because of the long-term entitlement costs and the interest rates start killing us. the question is -- and we actually get the negotiation before the markets wake up one morning and say yes, we have 11, destinbt ceiling 2013, whatever crisis and -- we have shrugged off the debt ceiling in 2011, 2012, 20 or 10, whatever crisis in 2014, bob by that point it is probably too late and you have to do real serious drastic cuts at that point in time to get back in budget and balance. i'm not sure you want to wait that long. i know we don't. politicians have

what it takes to stand up today and change the structure. of the most of rising things to me during this most recent crisis is how calm markets were. markets were a lot happier than i was when it was going on, i will say. theynk that is because basically said we have seen this movie before, the congress already pulled the rabbit out of the have the last minute. we don't really have anything to worry about. if we approach again, maybe they will. who knows? who knows how markets work? end, it is probably finally markets that will discipline the system and force politicians to do something more sensible. guest: that is the point because one of the buzzwords was at the market new the congress idea before the congress knew it had a deal. we all knew they would do some the for october 17 because nobody even wanted to see what i look icon of the great dane. onwhat that looks like

october 18th. host: karl joins us on our republican line. i listened last week and that i heard people talking about the republican party and how it was their fault, the government shutdown. you guys are some smart guys. this started when president obama lost the aaa rating. this started when he did not pass the budget for the first four years of his administration . i get frustrated when people say i want to give up on the republicans. we still have to be a two-party system. we have a check and balance system, otherwise someone will take off with the whole thing and we won't have anything. i'd like the democrats and harry reid have done in the past when they passed a law care. but my biggest thing is -- when they passed obamacare. my biggest thing is when he stood up there in misery and told the factory workers -- in told the factory

workers at an f1 50 would cost more money. it already does it we already lost the aaa rating. it already costs or money. wink -- when you go to the dollar store, you cannot buy anything for one dollar anymore. it is not as republicans and democrats. the au contraire need to stop and quit looking at the news and look at the government and what you guys are talking about and i encourage you guys to keep going up and educating. it is not just a democrat or independent or republican problem -- it is the whole country's problem. host: can we focus on the rating that he talked about? very goods is a point. i will say quickly let rudy elaborate, but the reason why our credit rating was watched was not because of the dysfunction but because of our long-term debt. the ability to pay the interest amos, the ability to pay back debts, and as an entitlement grow and those cost below are, that's interesting -- costs grow

forer, it is the inability the republican and democrats to come together and get a negotiated budget deal that actually starts reducing the pay offand hopefully the debt. that is the problem for the credit agency. guest: this dysfunction that karl talked about, while it has reached a peak recently, it has been around for a very long time. i find it totally is crystal that our congress is incapable -- totally disgraceful that our congress is incapable of having an appropriation bill is the beginning of our year. they have not done that since 1997, something like that. how do you expect the bureaucracy to plan if they don't know how much money they're going to spend? effect --n contractors are not really know if they will get their contracts renewed, so they put in an extra price margin because of that.

so this gradual increase and dysfunction that we have been seeing does in fact cost us a lot of money. the budget, back to the president submits a budget, the covers has to pass, the president is supposed to submit a budget the first monday in february. if you look like a 2013, he did not submit one until april 10. part of it because of the fiscal cliff deal, which is not a passive of january wanted them at four weeks to basically get the planning done for a budget and send it forward. now we are going to have a january 15. the house is supposed to submit a budget three weeks later when they're usually trying to plan for this for a month. i think we will see a delayed budget this year which will put us back on a path, how are we going to pass appropriation bills th? we have to look at how we change the structure. host: joined by jason fichtner and rudy penner.

nacogdoches, texas, independent line. about -- want to ask -- if social security is such a big problem of the united states today, what is that have a whole lot of iou's and nobody is looking to paying it back? the government -- which is the people that the governors is the conflict withhis social security, not the government of the people but the governors who have control of the situation that are making it like it is. host: mr. penner? guest: social security death of

a large number of bonds in its trust account. because it has had surpluses over the years. the surpluses especially group when depression babies like me were retiring and there were many of us. not many of us. right now it is a cash flow deficit, that is to save you money they're taking in and the payroll taxes aren't quite inc. for the benefits is -- are not quite paying for the benefits they are paying out there they still have a surplus because of all these bonds. they get interest payments from the treasury. but does not help the country. that is just going from one part of -- one pocket of government to the other. while they have a surplus today, that is going to vanish pretty soon. then the trust fund will be on a downward path and ultimately will not be able to pay all the benefits. -- really gordon thing about

and the really important thing about social security reform is the longer you wait to do it, the more painful it is going to be. you should do it gradually. the last reform we had in 1983 -- its most important effect of increasing the normal retirement -- did not take place until it affected people age 62 in the year 2000. i was 17 years of notice. it is too late now to get 17 years of notice to do what we starto do, but we should curry quickly and doing gradually if we can. guest: linda point out also wall surface of security is one of the drivers of our long-term debt, rhino medicare and medicaid right now is that weighing more money and social security and how growing faster and far as outlay. our biggest talents is controlling harris -- our biggest challenge is controlling health care costs. those iou's are running out. like you say, one pocket of government to the next. there is a myth that social

security does not contribute to deficit. it does. it is driving down and our ability to make money in other places. times" taking a look at what happened over the last three weeks and what it does for risk-free assets as they are describing of your some of the story goes on to say -- host: but the idea that our treasuries that we sell, is that effective in the long term? guest: this is the key point about why we would not have seen

a lack of payment on the interest of our debt. to a financial nuclear war. they would've made sure it was pay because of the nature of how treasuries are so valuable. there is nothing that is risk- free. there is management risk, political risk, interest risk. the closest thing to risk-free as a treasury by the government heard secretary lu, president obama would've made sure that was protected, even in the case of running out of the other bills. guest: the interesting question is there, i think they would have moved heaven and earth to pay interest on the debt. there's no doubt about that cared then that would not have been able to pay other obligations. it would not available to pay , what not have it will pay social security benefits on time. would that be equivalent to a default on our debt? i've heard stories from wall street, no, the bond market

would go on as usual. others would say that would be considered to be a default in the markets would have collapsed. host: bob is from woodbridge virginia on our independent line. good morning. go ahead. caller: i used to work with one of the agency payrolls, and medicare is 1.45% of all your income. if they raise the social 108rity up to -- up from now to let say 500,000 and then reduce the rates for social security, would that reduce the -- rightor the current now, social security does not taken enough annually. you may have to explain a little bit. guest: right on payroll taxes, there is money taken out for

medicare, social security, retirement and disability. at the caller said, nutter what you make, -- no matter what you make, medicare and take the percent out of that. however, social security is a cap, that is $113,000. one of the reform options is to lift the cap, raising the tax max. if you were to get rid of it completely, not completely, but almost, the problem is if you do that, social security is benefit, don earned you raise benefits as well because you get back what you put in? if you raise it, you might have those who are of higher income paying more in, but if it is not a good deal for us, we want to curtail the problem and it looks more like welfare then an

entitlement. guest: that is right. and there are practical robbins with raising the cap. -- problems with raising the cap. people have a lot of choice whether they take their composition in wages, which would be taxed by social security, or take it in dividends and profits, which would not be taxed. it is fairly easy to manipulate the wage andower increasing profits. it becomes hard to administer what that cap it's about a certain amount here as jason says, item and all -- i do not know how much of bill gates' income is earned income. shirley on the democrats line. caller: hi. one of the things you could start with is ask your guests whether they are republican,

democrat, or other. you reform -- he referred to the "financial times," so i will rephrase your ,"estion, the "financial times i think a couple of years ago, had an article saying if we went to medicare for everybody, similar to what they have in europe, canada, israel, that we would save up to $300 billion a year. $300 billion a year. we would just be cutting out the middleman because our medicare does not cost a whole lot for overhead. , work for a company years ago i medical insurance company, and a recent article in the des moines register says that they charged 60% overhead.

they don't want obamacare because they're going to have to cut way back or go out of business. there is a 20% limit. host: what would you like our guests to address? caller: i would like them to address the fact that we would be a better off if we had medicare. now, that is socialism, i am a socialist. host: ok, thank you. guest: shirley but the idea of better off, and what does it mean to be better off yo? we are spending more per capital been our partners, and we do not get the most for money. planet your,pay do you have the same quality, access, ability to get in line? in canada, you might have to wait in line for heart surgery or other types of things, but you can get your armed fix of it is broken. what do we trade off for?

we have the best advancements when it comes to medical technology in the world. if we start taking that away because of the profit incentive, you will basically see a reduced technological advancement in health care. this is a very complex problem. it is not just the middleman charging too much. what we don't know, we are not medical doctors, the third-party payment system, the interment -- your employees are paying premiums. without knowing the full cost, how can i make a full decision on an assumption? guest: the really important point is that the united kingdom and canada subject their health systems to a budget, and the systems have to live within a budget. that, as jason implies, means some rationing. you can't get the treatments you want in a timely fashion very often. the basic problem with that is that the rationing is not

transparent. it is very difficult to understand exactly how it happens in canada. in the united kingdom. it is mainly administered by the doctors discussing things with their patients. the budget is under control. they have strong political pressures to increase those budgets more than they would like, but contrast that with our system, medicare is in entitlement. , the lawefines it defines what kind of treatment they can have, hardly excluding anything. we try to control costs with the price control system so the union would have been proud of it, but that does not work at all. so basically what happens is that we pay for a writ of a company door -- we pay for everybody who company door. by the way, she talked about overhead, but there is a enormous fraud in the medicare program, and we don't spend nearly enough money trying to

catch that fraud. so the spending is just totally out of control. in my view, we have got to move , andward having a budget there are different ways to do that to our market into that, but that is really the important point. guest: rudy is correct. there is no such thing as an unlimited resource. if you want more health, you get less education of a less infrastructure. you need but health care on a budget. now, again, the regular order of the appropriation bill is especially spending. mandatory spending, entitlement spending back on the table, maybe not yearly because we do not want yearly changes, but maybe every five years we have to have impassively operates and look at programs to make sure it stays within cost controls and stay on budget so does not grow. host: as far as he best looking ahead, what are you looking for as far as not only what happened with the shutdown, long-term economic effects, what specific things to look for and say hey, we can see that causes this?

guest: that is a very tough on. we will see other brigman shipped going up to january 15. the only way we will know if they're getting close to having a deal, setting up a deal down the road that they can get to the cost of change cpi, not just to social security but taxes so democrats get some revenue. that is the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit, there is no ability to compromise anywhere. guest: i have to say i'm very pessimistic. we may get a few small steps of that sort, but every time you do a small step, the next step gets harder and harder. that is the problem. say, a terrible thing to but i do not see as resolving this kind of problem without a crisis. if you look at what happened in other democratic countries, it took a crisis to get the politicians to wake up and solve the budget problem. that happened in canada, sweden.

now those two countries have extraordinarily responsible fiscal policies. but it took the pressure in the marketplace to force them to do it. host: rudolph penner with the urban attitude and jason fichtner of george mason university have thought about the impact of the shutdown the debt limit. gentleman, thank you for the conversation. coming up on the program, we are going to change gears and talk about opec. the members of the opec nation, especially as this week marks the 40th anniversary of the opec oil embargo. we look at the current strength of opec especially as u.s. energy rises. our guest will be jon kingston. later on, we will have a set of open fonts for you as well. first, i want to talk to you about our "newsmakers" program. chris van hollen, the top democrat on the budget committee, talks about the budget conference committee and if they will be able to hammer

out a big agreement on the debt ceiling. [video clip] >> we hope that within the scope of these conversations we are able to move the ball forward. now, the conferees, the negotiators want to decide what the scope is. how much we want to try to bite off into as part of these -- off and chew? that will be one of the early decisions we try and reach. again, the good news in this round is that we hope that our republican colleagues have learned the right lesson from the debacle we just went through. unnecessary pain imposed on the entry for 16 days. and is not have to be that way. we are hoping that our colleagues will put on the clubs and recognize that this negotiation should be between the two budget, and no one should try to gain advantage again by threatening to shut down the government or default on our debt. if we can put on those clubs and have a serious conversation,

maybe we can advance the ball forward. >> you're probably said yesterday he will look for common ground. common ground is different than compromise. one of the areas where there might be some common ground is to try to get rid of some of -- or all of these across the board cuts that are hitting the and on every domestic agency. is that what we are looking for, and if so, what are democrats willing to give up in order to alleviate what is known as sequestration? >> again, we have to decide as negotiators what the full scope will be, but certainly part of any conversation would be to try and replace the so-called sequester. is a very deep, immediate, and across the board cuts in important investments like transportation and education and science and research. they congressional budget office recently said that if you keep funding levelsep in place, that by this time next year, you will have 800,000

fewer jobs in the united states of america. that is a self-inflicted wound that we do not think the country can afford. so yes, we want to replace those sequester it is within equal amount of deficit reduction but done in a smarter way up -- over a longer period of time. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now from new york is john kingston. our topic, the role of opec especially as we mark a historical event in opec's history. mr. casey, thank you for joining us. and we start with a little bit of perspective? tell our viewers a little bit about what opec is an specifically an event 40 years ago which brings us to today's deception -- discussion. guest: opec was founded in 1960 in baghdad with her first meeting. in order to rest a little bit ine control from what was

the big oil company's and also to protect the price of oil from falling to fall. -- too far. there was too much oil for the world, the standard oil cartels for a long time kept it from falling further. opec then took on that role. member americans do or the embargo in 1973, which came out of the yom kippur war, and as a result, they think of opec as an organization that is determined to boost the price as high as vacant, which is not what they are really all about. the role from nine to 73 up until about 1980, and then their strength weakened quite a bit. at the if you look now world of oil, i do not think that the world is done with worrying about supplies. more likelyupply is to exceed demand than the other way around. as a result, i think the world of opec is going to be going back to that 1960 remit, which

is to keep the price of oil from falling too far. right now, it is an organization that is pretty much -- i when i say cover. well, maybe i will say a cover for saudi arabia, which puts oil on the market and risk -- and withdrawals it at the market exceeded. is not working in concert anymore to keep the price of oil countriesvidual willing to sacrifice some of their output. and so casey saudi's with a little bit of contribution may be from the kuwaitis and the united arab emirates keep the orloff the market. it is a very different situation than it was four years ago. host: talk about the oil embargo. what happened and what was the result here in the u.s.? result of thea 1973 war, the yom kippur war, egypt and israel and other arab nations. and the u.s. support of israel resulted in arab countries deciding to embargo oil deliveries to the u.s.

it was not all of opec. i think my history is our tonight, but i'm not sure. it was exacerbated in the u.s. by a distribution system that was government controlled. allotments and allocations. when you look back today, rules adjusting and play the crazy. the market because rate rigid and the ability to move shortages from one place to nother, move surpluses was there. which it certainly is today. i think everybody who waited on gas lines -- i literally was given a car by my parents, and i drove it out of the lot, and i got on the gas line. that is how real these memories are to me. yes, kind of gas lines -- they were initially created by the embargo, but they were made 10 times worse by distribution system of government regulation system in the u.s. that is no longer there. you cannot just say embargo gas line. the other thing i would say, to -- go ahead, pedro. host: at the time, president nixon had to deal with it. what did he do yo>

-- what did he do? guest: he talked about removing those controls. there was i like to do. fully getd not deregulated until ronald reagan took over in 1981. striking an oil price controls was one of the first act he did, i think day to of his presidency. host: after nixon, president carter had to deal with it. what was his approach? guest: first of all, at that time, the media crisis had passed, you had some decline in demand, so really the crisis is always caused by the opposition in the margin. jimmy carter talked a lot about energy independence. he referred to it as the moral equivalent of war. he talked about developing oil shale. very excited about west third there was a government corporation out west that was set up to appear he was blindsided by the collapse of

the shaw and iran. what was interesting about the shah, they do not care how much oil iran produce. this was a major part of their export earnings, a major part of their economy, so they want to sell as much oil as possible. the man time was different because he did not care if the iranian industry fell apart because he was leading them islamic revolution. that is almost unique in history. aen the shah fell, there was significant loss in the world, the prices spiked again and help set off a new round of inflation along with other things i dig you cannot most say that also really helped -- i think you can almost they helped the reelection of ronald reagan in 1980. host: our guest john kingston of platts, you can call the fors, (202) 585-3881

republicans, (202) 585-3880 for democrats, (202) 585-3882 for independents. that is a tweet @cspanwj. citizen e-mail, journal@c- span.org. mr. kingston address president carter. you address -- when he addressed the nation, what was called a fireside chat, you may remember at this time he also told us to turn off thermoset than wear a sweater. here is what he had to say. [video clip] must face the fact that the energy shortage is permanent. there is no way we can solve it quickly. cooperate and make modest sacrifices, if we learn to live through affiliate remember the importance of helping our neighbors, then we can find ways to adjust and to make our society more efficient and our own lives more enjoyable and productive. the utility companies must

promote conservation and not consumption. oil and natural gas company's must be honest with all of us about the reserves and profits. we will find out the difference between real shortages and artificial once. -- ones towill ask private companies sacrifice just as private citizens must. all this must learn to waste less energy, simply by keeping our thermostat at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night, you can save half the current shortage of natural gas. there is no way that i or anyone else in the government can solve our energy problems if you are not willing to help. , any mr. kingston takeaways from president carter's statement at the time yo? guest: i'm not sure what i thought at the time because i

was in college and i probably thought that some of that made sense. you look back now, and you to scratch your head. the whole idea of civic virtue as a way of solving an energy crisis, that might last for a few weeks. look, energy is a good that people want to consume. they want to consume a lot of it. they want to consume it up to the point that it makes their lives better. if you want able to consume less, you have to make the price higher. there is really no other way. i know there is a lot of cheering about the u.s. decline the standards are having a contribution. the price of gasoline has tended to be three $2 and $4. recently it has been towards the higher end, which results in reduction in consumption. some reduction is because you still have seven percent plus unemployment.

lesse are going to consume , the price is high. the other thing, he said it was permanent. we know it's not permanent. carter did realize various controls -- i was in college, and i went to a basketball game at a cold arena. the players on the opposing team started again wearing a wool hat. i think jimmy carter did realize that, and he talked about the regulation. he was not able to fully deregulated. those thoughts are very nice, but they are no solution to a long-standing problem. >> we are giving you a list of countries.mber we will take our first call him on the independent line.

caller: hello. good morning. until a couple weeks ago, i was never the biggest expert when it came to opec. my wife was really helping me. right near the north field in philadelphia -- she happens to work in a company that oversees oil. she was trying to explain to me the situation with the united states and opec. host: the caller hung up. apologies for that. will go to bill from george on the republican line. i have a question for mr. kingston.

how long it may be before gas prices come down, and what it will take to make them come down. guest: i am bad at forecasting. they have come down quite a bit. ,f you look at the fundamentals in the short term, there is a number out there called the opec call. it is something like the international energy agency will estimate worldwide demand, and track from -- subtract from that non-opec supply. what is left is the opec call. production has been running above the call. there has been a lot of pressures on opec. the u.s. had not imported

iranian oil for some time, but we have a lot of sanctions that have cut iranian oil. iraq is not gaining production the way we thought it was. libya is in turmoil. sudan as well. was a consumer, producer. you see that, you think if all these countries could get their act together, produce a lot more to their capacity, then job tould have quite a reduce the amount of oil on the market to prevent the price from collapsing. i'm not a forecaster. given the constraints in world supply, i don't think you're

going to be looking at $2 oil. was $1.80, that was when we were in the deepest part of the financial crisis. host: david is on our democrat'' line in new york. the gas linesmber being in the later part of the 1970's. it was 1976, 1977. the first gas lines were in 1974, and then they went to even-odd, which had an amazing impact. enormous gasad lines, suddenly i was driving by them and they had no gas lines.

i was living in virginia at the time, and we did not have gas lines. i would talk to my family in new york, and they did. the market is so much more efficient, able to take shortages -- surpluses in some places and move them to another area to fill a shortage. after katrina, the colonial pipeline was shut down because of loss of power. distributorsw will added hercules like efforts to make sure their customers were filled. you could not do that back then when there were all these rules. outside of short bursts, after gas lines that went on for months are a thing of the past. host: this is charles on the

independent line. caller: back when the oil prices first started jumping, there was a prince from saudi arabia who went on the national news and stated his prices were much cheaper than what they were claiming on the news. a lot of these oil prices are artificially hyped by exxon mobil and various gas producing companies that take oil in. i like to have his comment on whether he wants to admit that this went on, this prints made this statement on the national news. guest: i'm not sure what the state man was -- statement was. a company like exxon mobil, the last place they set a price is the wholesale distribution point

in the system. the price point you are seeing at a station is not set by exxon or mobil. they license their brand to an independent owner. significant investment in this country of integrated oil companies that produce and sell oil. phillips, conoco, and phillips 66 refines it and sells it at the rack. marathon oil split up as well. all those companies have no more control. the people running conoco phillips have nothing to do with gasoline. out of therude ground and sell it to a refiner. same thing with marathon. hess is splitting up. the only integrated refiners you have now are exxon mobil, chevron, bp, and shall.

-- shall -- shell. these oillook of companies as being identical. a company like bolero -- valero -- their business model is completely different from the business model of a company like exxon mobil. when the price of oil gets really high, they're generally not happy because it makes demand decline and hurts the convenience stores. the idea of oil companies all having the same interests is very outdated. the last thing that chevron and exxon mobil can do is control the price of oil. there are at the mercy of the market. because theformed

price was at its lowest level. it people at mobile thought would stay there. the people at exxon did not. they realize that trying to control the price of oil makes [inaudible] look easy. twitter.omment on say no. will it's one big world market out there. the u.s. import dependence has dropped or medically. i saw a story that looked at oil imports. i think it was "usa today." the number that matters are your net imports. the u.s. is becoming a ofnificant exporter

products. we have the most modern refining system in the world. the rotterdam, antwerp and area, and the singapore area. the u.s. system is second to none. refiners have increasingly taken in more oil, turned into higher value products, and sent it out. that's a good thing. it is a profit-making, job creating aspect. looking at the import numbers, how much crude are we importing that is incorrect. you have to look at net imports, 6.5 million barrels a day. at the time of the embargo, they were at 6.5 million barrels a day. we could not survive without them. the world market is completely

interrelated, but we are in a much better position. host: bridget is on the republican line from poor richie, florida. caller: thank you. my name is brenda. 1973, my husband was number one in the state of north stations.n service he had an interstate station, and it was doing better than any around. he had another smaller station. after beingonths nominated best in north carolina, we had to close down both of them because we had a 24-hour contract. had a lot ofat, we people that by the 15th of the month, we were out of our allotment we could get for the whole month.

so we had to close down. we were doing pretty well. say is, all myo life i have lived within a third of a mile from a colonial pipeline, a big pipeline going towards charlotte. i never thought of it being dangerous. my mom told me what it was and to stay away from it. why in the world doesn't the getblicans and democrats together and tell the automobile people that we're going to run on natural gas and put that pipeline going down here? whatever happened to the

woman's husband's station, we did have allotments. the market is 10 times more flexible now today. the market running out, that would not happen today. as far as natural gas vehicles, natural gas vehicle sound wonderful. natural gas is cheaper than oil. they used to run on a rough ratio that would very, but not by a huge amount. starting in 2009, they started to vary considerably. there are problems with natural gas vehicles. congress cannot just mandate this. about -- you're not going to go as far on a tank of compressed natural gas as you

are on a take of oil. her husband owned a station. if you're going to say you have dispenser,ural gas you're talking about major investment. these stations are not owned by the companies anymore. there is anecdotal evidence that natural gas vehicles are making an impact in the u.s.. isead the other day that gm coming out with the m pollack, fueled by gasoline and impress natural gas -- impala, fueled by compressed natural gas. always amazes me that if i had a one gallon jug of gasoline, i could put that into a car that weighs 35 hundred pounds and it would propel me down the road at 60 miles an hour for 20 to 25 miles. i still find that incredible. the reason is because nothing yet has been able to match the

energy intensity of oil. the only thing that matches it is uranium, and that has its own issues. anything that will compete with oil has to do -- deal with the fact that it is very transportable and very energy dense. host: have electric cars and electric/gasoline cars made an oilct as far as not only consumption, but the amount of people buying them, and if it is changing the story when it comes to our competitors on oil? guest: it is not changing the story. diminishednsumption because of that is miniscule. gasoline/electric guitar mix i hope has a very bright future here. with's always a concern electric vehicles, what they call range anxiety.

battery power, and i'm going to get stuck somewhere. if you have a chevy volt vehicle, you can switch to the gasoline option. you could drive it from new york to florida. after the battery runs out, you go on gasoline the rest of the way. hope that that technology makes it. there have been some issues. the issue on all of these things remain the cost of the battery and the ability to store electricity. kenneth from georgia is on the democrats' line. caller: hello. host: go right ahead. i want to know something about the main players for [indiscernible] caller, go ahead.

the main players for the oil company is exxon mobil, bp, and opec. we got a shortage in all the united states, we don't got a shortage in all the united states. coup in vietnam. guest: i'm not sure what the question is. vietnam has turned out to be a major disappointment in the world of oil production. i went to a conference in vietnam in the mid-1990's. vietnam has never turned out to be the oil-producing area it thought your i.

there are major players. production has diminished. at its peak, it was closing out 50%. the individual companies, exxon mobil, bp -- they continue to be major players. their biggest issue as they go forward is lack of opportunities. so many countries have gone to a nationalistic view of not necessarily keeping out for an exploration, but making life for them not necessarily pleasant. brazil shocked everyone by saying that the state oil company was going to take 51% of every project, and that they were always going to be the operator. that makes brazil a little less attractive. theseggest issues that major oil companies have is a

lack of opportunity. if you have a lack of opportunity, there's not a lot you can control. host: what is the impact of the news that when it comes to oil and natural gas combined, we are surpassing what worship uses -- russia produces? guest: it's an interesting milestone, and shows that the u.s. has benefited from private property rights. it turned out that one of the key parts of our energy policy was private control of mineral rights. you don't have that in most other parts of the world. if i was a farmer in north dakota and a company came to me and said, we want to drill for oil on your lead and if we hit it, you're going to get a big -- land and if we hit it, you're going to get a paycheck every month. they certainly are not like that in russia. there is a private property incentive in the u.s. to drill.

this is one of the key reasons while u.s. production of oil and natural gas has soared, and russia has stayed flat. russia has turnout to be very inhospitable to foreign investment. there's a story in the "wall street journal" that talks about specific energy companies highlighting the fact that there is more drilling going on in the gulf coast, deepwater drilling in the gulf coast. guest: there is. they are continuing to drill in the gulf of mexico. production levels there have been disappointing. there is no doubt that the moratorium put them that for a bit -- back for a bit. host: tim is on the independent line from new sweden, maine. do you know what the

president said during his last news conference, that the united states is becoming the world's largest exporter of oil? do you know how much doyle that we export? -- oil that we export? there.e will leave it guest: there's a great deal of confusion out there. u.s. exports a very small amount of crude, mostly to canada. i believe the ability to do that is enough to. -- in nafta. the u.s. has become a significant exporter of petroleum products. u.s. exports have hit 3 million barrels a day. you look at what comes out of singapore and the rotterdam area. it is kind of controversy over

because people think, why don't you leave these products home and lower the price? -- these products at home and lower the price? we are consuming less oil, and that's a good thing. you've got these gigantic refineries down mostly on the gulf coast. they are highly complex and work better at a high rate of operation. they are very efficient. what do we do with them? from boy oil -- buy oil somewhere else, and turn it into a higher value diesel project -- product, and export it somewhere else? i think that's a great thing. we are becoming a processor. if people go into data and look at data, the number to look at for imports is your net imports. net imports topped out in this country at 2005. at one point we hit 13 million

barrels a day. we are now at six and a half million barrels a day. that, 50% decline where we are not spending dollars abroad. when president obama speaks about oil exports, he's really talking about product exports. host: how much oil do we get from canada and mexico? you look back at the days the embargo started. mexico, when the embargo hit in 1973, we imported no oil from mexico at all. we importing over a million barrels of oil a day from mexico, but we also send them a lot of products. the net runs around 700,000 barrels a day. the net out of canada is a little over 200,000.

when you throw in mexico and net imports, you have total net imports of 6.5. net imports from canada and mexico, about 3. imports are really not vulnerable to embargo. think the u.s. is going to be net imports of zero, but i think we can be net imports equaling mexican and canadian net imports. that doesn't mean you won't import from anywhere else. you're always going to be exporting someplaces. what matters is your net and how you do relative to canada and mexico. host: we have some information

about imports that the u.s. takes in per year. take a look at that information. this is jim on the republican line. caller: good morning. i've heard some pretty good sources that we have so much doyle underground here --oil underground here that we could supply arab countries with it. why don't we drill? guest: you get these tremendous numbers, what is known as oil shale in the rockies. the reserves are enormous, but very expensive to drill. places, whate comes up is a petroleum. the reserves have been thrown around a lot. it is a very water intensive

process. it's very expensive. you don't want the price of oil to be at the level needed to make those things economic. to 120, 100get up $30. -- $120, $130. this is one thing about the shale that has been revolutionary. once they learn how to get oil out of shale relatively cheaply, the success rate on shale wells is 90%. the oil is there, they just stick the bit down there and get the hydrocarbons. it's very expensive, different from the shale you get in north dakota. asks off ofilliams twitter if there are plans to

build additional refineries in the united states. guest: there are a couple of small refineries going up in north dakota. they are narrowly focused to produce diesel. the truck traffic in north dakota is up a bit. they want to bring diesel up there. this has been the most oilwrought fact in u.s. discussion, that we have not built a new refinery in years. what we have done is greatly expanded refineries, upgraded them. we have made them more complex. the fact that we have not build a new refinery is not relevant. issue.a non- we have taken our refineries and made them bigger in many cases. we have made them more efficient. they are the world's best. host: does federal policy get

involved in building a refinery, and hinder the ability to build one? permits,u need to get which makes the cost higher. regulation tends to favor those who are already in place. a zero base toom build up enough capital to build a new refinery. the cost of getting things like are expensive. there was a plan to build a refinery in yuma, arizona. they got the air permit. but the economics don't work. refineries in the u.s. have gotten relatively profitable. in the 1990's, there was one sale of three refineries in one shot with the replacement cost of the refineries sold $.15 on the dollar. who would build a new refinery

with those economics? host: a caller on the democrat'' line in florida. thank thewant to gentleman for the program that gives good information on energy. engineer. i've been involved in the problem for four decades. the question is, is there a practical alternative fuel? i suggest you and your readers read the 2003 paper by dr. roberto nichols. the result was two things. because gasoline is so energy efficient, it takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to get you the same

distance down the road. 1.9 gallons of methanol to get you that far down the road. they did an engine modification and generator and got the percentage of methanol down. methanol does not require the cost. ethanol costs too much to compete without subsidy. right. thank you for the call, and thank you for watching platts energy week. i remember going to some hearings a couple years ago. there were some citizen saying, we need a new energy future. is a 19th century oil. it still is, but it does not take away that density of energy. all these things like ethanol need some sort of subsidy. in the case of ethanol, it is

now a mandate. they just cannot compete with the density of oil. that is why the arguments against oil become political. we want to divorce ourselves from the strife in the middle east. it is going to be a tough product. it is so many attributes in delivering value to its users. ethanol, methanol don't do that. has possibilities because its price is so favorable relative to oil, whether it is a natural gas vehicle or there is some way of using natural gas as a way of producing hydrogen. that's an enormous cost as well. finishing up, mr. kingston, opec -- host: finishing up, mr.

kingston, opec -- how does it stand today? role going forward is going to be to keep the price from collapsing. they had individual country quotas. they don't have those quotas right now. let's assume there are some great breakthrough between iran and the u.s. day one 800,000 miles a the market. i don't know if they have it now. we could have a gigantic collapse in the price of oil, and that's great for the u.s. now you have got these oil revolutions going on in texas and north dakota. what happens to that? is a comfort point where the oil companies can make money producing and consumers can be happy with the price. opec is more likely to go back to its original role, which is to keep the price from collapsing. host: john kingston joining us

from new york, from platts. thank you for joining us. we're going to give you a set of open phones coming up, but we want to tell you about the library of congress. the library of congress has been archiving millions of publications around the world since 1800's. they are expanding. tweets will be added to their archives and collections. define a more, stop by the library to hear about this new more,aking -- to find out she stopped by the library to hear about this new undertaking. [video clip] explain to us how this project got started, and when it began. >> in 2010, twitter approach the library.

there were about 21 billion tweets in the archive. we accepted that archive. part of the offer was to allow us to keep receiving tweets on a daily basis. that 2006 archive, which was about 20 billion tweets, now we get that same amount a little over a month each month. >> how does the archiving process -- explain from beginning to end how that works. >> each day we receive tweets from intermediaries, which receives them from twitter. in -- weinging them bring them in and time segments. them into aing stable preservation and storage environment. we are working on providing access to the tweets as well. >> how are they archived? are they categorized or saved in a certain way so that people can later search them? >> that's a big challenge for us

now. tweet, there is 140 or less characters, but there is much more metadata that comes in with every tweet. there is geolocation and the like. the big challenge for us is to index every tweet. we are starting to index the 2006-2010 archive. >> can anyone look at them? >> they will be available in our reading rooms. would a tweet from an average citizen about what they eat for breakfast be imported to the archive? library of congress is the congress's library, but also the library that preserves the

creative and historical record of the united states. when you look at a collection like twitter, it will be valuable both in terms of seeing how societies as a whole are life in to events and general, but it also will be individual terms of records of what they have published on twitter. we hold the historical record so people can come into the library and learn from it. the creative record is here so it can spark additional create committee. in a lot of ways, twitter will inspirationffer . lot aboutut an awful what that person's interests are. >> what about the privacy part of that?

are you allowed to archive things like that? >> we are only archiving public tweets, face it people have in essence published on the web. we honor deletes. we are going through the process of indexing the tweets now. we will also then run a delete , and run that against the full archive. >> how many tweets have you captured so far? >> as of today, we are just short of 320 billion tweets. the last day that we took it was about 480 million for the day. this year we average 450 million a day. just because of the sheer volume, it's going to take us months to index tweet by tweet by tweet between.

we hope to have that six to 10 -- 2006-2010 archive ready to read in the spring. final 22 minutes or so of the program, we will give you a chance to participate on open phones. here is how you can reach out to us. the numbers are on your screen. if you want to send us a tweet, do so @cspanwj. you can always send us an e-mail at journal@cspan.org. in "thesis piece washington post" takes a look at partisanship. here's the headline. to cure rampant partisanship,

and power voters in the middle. saying, here is how california and washington got the middle involved. after california voters instituted the blanket primary in 1996 --

the first call is from ike willis in florida, republican line. i think mike left us. james in georgia. there are two things i'd like to talk about right quick. cruz was born in canada, on socialized medicine. he could also go back to cuba and try to free his people down there.

the republicans are trying to make the dollar [indiscernible] this is what they are trying to anddestroy this country make the dollar not the reserve currency. a caller on independence' line. caller: i was going to suggest that we have someone like robert reich on your show to talk about focusing on a tax plan, progressive tax plan. oft would eliminate a lot our problems, at least help a lot of our problems. that, can get somebody on it would really help open the discussion and get congress to start focusing on important issues. maybe one issue at a time versus a hodgepodge of issues that they never seem to -- host: why do you think a plan

like that would work? caller: it would be able to tax people making the most money and putting it back into our economy. loopholes make an effective tax rate for corporations and wealthy individuals nearly nil. a lot of people talk about how much rich people pay, but the fact of the matter is, a great accountant makes their effective tax rate nothing. a progressive tax would and that. it used to be -- end that. it used to be 90%. you still get to make millions of dollars, but you're going to put it back into the economy. that's important. cuts cause the white house to cancel public towards their.

abc news and others reporting that public tours will resume starting -- tours there. abc news and others reporting that public towards will resume starting november 5. the white house said its garden will open to the weekend on october 22 -- public on october 26 and 27. caller: i want to comment on mr. johnson's interview. me theng that interested most was he did not mention the fact that the industry does control the amount of gasoline that it exports out of the country. oft is relative to the price gasoline. they're doing the same thing with natural gas. they're building a liquid vacation plant in the gulf, and they have plans to build 16 more of them.

is a glut here in united states. as soon as they liquefy it and exported out of the country, the price will go up. when he says they don't control the price of gasoline, that's not completely true. when you export the excess production, that keeps prices high. on thisrnard madoff program, his sons subject of a story in the "new york times."

tom is up next from clinton, maryland. caller: good morning. the american people to remember what the republican party put us through, and that they almost cost us default. never known a terrorist organization to be so intrusive into american life as the republican party has been in the past. they put us in a position where our good faith and credit are being questioned to the rest of the world. we have laws in this country, and they refuse to follow the laws, and they want to overthrow the government. this is the republican party. they call themselves people who are americans. i don't understand it. of the "jersey journal" this morning.

the new jersey supreme court allowing gay marriage to continue. our next caller is on the independent line. caller: i'm calling in regards to the article you read. i don't know why the republicans hate obama so bad. if everybody remembers, when him and hillary were running, all those republicans were in states where they had the primaries where they could switch over. they all went over and voted for obama over hillary. obama. they got thank you. host: there's a story in the "washington post" that you can read. paul is fromsorry,

pennsylvania. thanks for taking my call. i want to respond to a gentleman from platts. i watched the speech that president carter gave in 1977 when he compared our energy consumption habits to the moral equivalent of war. unlike many others, i took that to heart and saw that as a call to personal responsibility in terms of energy consumption, and promotion of renewable energy in the long term. i was a little offended that the gentleman just dismisses the possibility that we as a ace will become more

responsible when it comes to our own energy consumption. theoretically that the climate change, the vast majority of scientists who have come to think that that our human causes -- what if they are right? is this gentleman really saying aat he has no hope that we as people would summon the will and the strength to perhaps save our planet i being a little bit more -- by being a little bit more responsible? he seemed to look at the issue solely through an economic prism. i'm not so pessimistic about us as a species. saudi arabia was offered a seat at the un security council, and turned it down. that saudiaying arabia declined the seat because that the double standards prevent it from

performing its responsibilities. william on the democrats' line. caller: i watch c-span here pretty steady for the last couple, three weeks. the main thing that would help is if they could all be sworn in before they made their one minute speeches. anything they said they should be liable for, and they should not be able to get up there and talk about democrats, republicans, independents, and

all. they should have to make an oath before they can get on national tv and say what they say. they should have to take an oath, just like when they swear people in it hearings and stuff. they should have to take an oath before they can get on national tv and speak. host: did you say they should listen to that chaplain as well? caller: yes. host: why should they listen to the chaplain? caller: he makes a lot of sense. he's there to give them guidance of the morning before they start. they should all be swore in under oath every morning before they start talking. all the senators, congressmen, representatives and everything. it even the president, before he gets on tv, they all should take an oath right there and be sworn in. host: danny from florida, next,

independent line. the first time a man gets on tv and says he has the [inaudible] to pay his bills, he's not paying his bills. i'm very optimistic about the human race. says he's notan optimistic. nne up next on the republican line. caller: i want to make two comments. one is about the library of congress doing twitter. that is a waste of taxpayer dollars. it's ridiculous. unpaid, unverified, senseless words that people tweet. it's a waste of time. thesecond comment was about gentleman talking about cars and

are gasoline problems. gas we that the natural can use in our motors that we have now, we could actually put and change from gas to natural gas if we do that. usctric cars are getting nowhere. you still have to make electricity. solar panels are going up on roofs and firefighters are saying, let the house burne. the windmills are killing all the birds. the alternative energy that obama wants has not been thought out too well. story about energy production from england's perspective, which deals with the topic of fracking. driving down a bumpy country road, one comes upon a bare

patch the size of a soccer field. the energy sources may the united states a set only self- sufficient, but raises environmental concerns that have made many countries dead set against it. extracted by fracking. in france, the nation's highest court upheld the right to ban fracking. in germany, fracking activities are suspended. there is more to the story that you can read in the pages of the "new york times" this morning.

morning.ood i would like to address three issues. education, congress, and business. , wear as education goes need to start putting between grades eight and 12 american ,istory, civics, politics economics, and biology into the classrooms. that is important for people to learn. as far as congress goes, some laws,ssed congress holds the purse strings. dore is nothing anyone can other than -- congress does not authorize.

if third thought on that is you look at it, how many laws did congress pass that president into law because the debt would go up? not many. it has to be on a previous administration. business do whatever they think is profitable. they have been going to part- time jobs since the early 1990's. if you're making a profit and you can shift the insurance burden to government, they will do it. we have changed on xm radio. you can listen to us on channel 120 on xm.

that took place this week. find us there. one more call. missouri, independent line. it's important that we at the and take a look clinton administration. we had surpluses that were paying off the national debt. as soon as president bush was elected, he made the statement that the money does not belong to the government, it belongs to the people. he proceeded to give it all back. lostions of dollars were .ver two tax cuts that he gave now we are trillions of dollars in debt. he gave away trillions of dollars. we should be thinking about how best to get back to that. host: that is the last call we

will take this morning. looking forward to tomorrow's show. by two guestsned from "the boston globe." together a series of articles known as broken city, which talks about the state of politics in the united states. we will relate that conversation to things we have been talking about over the last three weeks. arlette -- olert from fitch will join us. we will talk about the process, how fitch works, as well as other credit rating agencies. at 9:15, we will focus on iran. the international community met with iran in switzerland. --ert reich that is "washington journal."

we will see you then. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> coming up next, a look at political cartoons and their influence on politics in the national conversation. after that, president obama awarding the medal of honor. then, a discussion on energy policy hosted by the u.s. energy security council. during the depression, she was thought to be out of touch with the people.

after her death, it was discovered that she provided financial help to hundreds of americans in need and never cashed the checks of those who paid her back. watch our program on first lady lou hoover. live monday night, our series continues. >> what i have here are the original drafts that i would like to share. first mighty colin. comingsalking about the and goings in the white house. they're getting back the regular schedule after the holiday season. clipping from november 6, 1940. she talked about how at midnight a larger craft in usual came in with the wonderful placards. on electionadition night.